Overeating versus undernourished – “hunger” in the first world

Quality or Quantity

For the first time in the story of Humanity there will be a new generation that has a lower life expectancy than its’ parents. This in happening in the US right now and it has a lot to do with their eating habits. We should be on the lookout as some European countries are following closely. We are overfed and undernourished and this explains about 80% of the prevailing illnesses that surround us. What a contradiction!

This explains the reason for most of the overweight people I see in consultancy. If your body is not receiving all the nutrients it needs, it will keep on asking for food in the hope that, at one point, that essential vitamin, mineral, amino acid or fatty acid will make its way in the right direction! We are not tuned into understanding our bodies well enough to read the difference between vitamin B9 hunger over magnesium craving so all we do is eat more because satiety doesn’t kick in. The problem resides in WHAT we are eating and all those empty calories end up turing into fat for storage in case of a “rainy day”.

The secret to avoid those extra kilos without feeling hungry is to nourish the body. Once it is full of nutrients, it will stop asking for food. Does this not seem obvious? This is why super-foods are becoming so popular among sport nutritionists and clinical diets. They are whole foods brought in from all parts of the world and that are often dried, grinded and/or juiced. They have been used for generations and, as well as being nutrition “bombs” they also have numerous unknown therapeutic properties that we are just beginning to discover. I am talking about cocoa, maca, avocados, Goji berries, coconut butter, sea vegetables, hemp seeds…the list goes on and on.

People like David Wolfe have literally stopped eating food to just be nourished by superfoods. If you are curious and wish to know more, there are a couple of great companies here in Spain that work with quality produce – Mundo Arcociris and Salud Viva.